christmas!!
jana tagged me with this meme and i love christmas too much to resist. and i'll just go ahead and pass it on to anyone who wants to share.

1. eggnog or hot chocolate?
i only do eggnog if it’s southern comfort’s vanilla spice eggnog, which is superyum. but usually i’d go for hot chocolate. with cinnamon. and sometimes with chile pepper, too.

2. does santa wrap presents or just put them under the tree?
santa lays presents out unwrapped; each child gets a different chair in the room and their presents are marked by their stockings (which have been duly stuffed with scrumptious things and little gadgets). presents from the parents are wrapped and go under the piano.

3. colored lights on the tree, or white?
beautiful, bright colors.

4. do you hang mistletoe?
when we hang something like this, it’s a kissing ball not mistletoe. but it doesn’t happen every year.

5. when do you put your decorations up?
first week of december.

6. what is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
my mama’s rolls, which are so delicious. no lousy breadmaker roll can even begin to compare, not even in your wildest imagination.

7. what's a favorite holiday memory from your childhood?
my parents often provided christmas for other families. one year they had all of us kids (there’s seven of us) help them do the shopping and delivery. i’ll never forget that woman’s face when we showed up at her door. reading the Christmas story with my family on Christmas eve is a favorite, too.

8. when and how did you learn the truth about santa?
i think i knew by the time i was nine or so--maybe even earlier, but i repressed the knowledge and continued pretending that he was real for a couple more years.

9. do you open a gift on christmas eve?
nope. that’s sacrilege.

10. how do you decorate your christmas tree?
with any ornament that strikes my fancy. i have everything from blown glass to handmade. i like them if they sparkle. i like them a bit funky. and i have a penchant for ornaments with things inside them (like my snowmen with snow inside or my snowglobe ornament). and i put disco balls on my tree—ornaments and strings of beads that look like disco balls. they do lovely things with the lights, which is, after all, what makes a tree so magical.

11. snow! love it or dread it?
love love love. visiting in, living in, frolicking in, walking in. love it.

12. can you ice skate?
sorta. but not as well as i roller skate. which takes me to. . .

13. do you remember your favorite gift?
the gift i remember the most is my white roller derby skates with bright pink wheels and stoppers. i got them when i was about ten or eleven and my mama bought them too big for me so i can still wear them twenty years later. i love my roller skates. a close second was my dream princess bed, doll and horse. man did i love that doll with her horse (which had flowers in its hair) and her bed (which had a wind up dream sequence which rolled under a screen underneath her pillow; when you laid the doll on it the dream sequence was supposed to scroll beneath the pillow; yeah, that’s right—under the pillow where it couldn’t be seen; i suppose the point was to know that the doll was having the dream; it was all pink, of course).

14. what's the most important thing about the holidays for you?
family and the savior. but really, i love it all. every last little bit of it.

15. what is your favorite holiday dessert?
in general, it’s pie—mostly pumpkin pie, but also coconut cream pie (my mama makes the best; i have never tasted cream pie that good anywhere else; and my pastry chef best friend says that the fancy-pants pastry chef she works for, who is famous for his coconut cream pie, doesn’t make cream pie as well as my mama does). but every other year or so my mama makes butter tarts which melt in my mouth and which taste like decadence incarnate. they’re pretty damn tasty, too.

16. what is your favorite holiday tradition?
reading the christmas story with my family on christmas eve. and going to the park with my nieces and nephews on christmas day to throw a frisbee or a ball or ride scooters. the last few years, we've started tracking santa's progress through norad, which my nieces and nephews just eat up. it's become a fun tradition.

17. what tops your tree?
i just got my tree topper this year, after spending four or five years looking for one i liked. it’s a silver, glittery angel made in a bit of an abstract style. i’m pleased.

18. which do you prefer - giving or receiving?
is there a difference? i love it all.

19. what is your favorite christmas song?
you want me to pick one favorite christmas song? are you crazy? away in a manger; joy to the world; o come, o come emmanuel; white christmas; mary did you know; bach’s christmas oratorio; the messiah; o come all ye faithful; i heard the bells on christmas day. really, i’ll stop now. there aren’t many christmas songs i don’t like. and there are a good many i love.

20. candy canes! yuck or yum?
they’re okay. i like them best when they melt into my hot chocolate.